


Crawling, Walking

by wowbright



Series: Glee Season 2 fic [4]
Category: Glee
Genre: Advent Challenge 2013, Episode Related, Episode: s02e10 A Very Glee Christmas, Episode: s02e11 The Sue Sylvester Shuffle, Episode: s02e12 Silly Love Songs, Episode: s05e01 Love Love Love, Gen, Klaine Advent Drabble Challenge 2013, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:53:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1386643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowbright/pseuds/wowbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeremiah knows better than to become friends with a 16-year-old boy. He does it anyway. – or – How Blaine met Jeremiah, and how it all fell apart before coming back together. Set mostly in Season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crawling, Walking

**Author's Note:**

> _**Author's** ** _note_ :** Almost since I first joined fandom, I've wanted to write a story about Blaine and Kurt from the point of view of Jeremiah, the poor unwitting soul who gets Gap Attacked by Blaine and the Warblers in 2.12 "Silly Love Songs." The Klaine Advent Challenge's day 7 prompt – "gift" – inspired me to finally do it. _
> 
> _**Acknowledgements:** _I got the idea that Jeremiah was a lighting technician and that Blaine met him at the Kings Island Christmas Spectacular from Mary Flanner’s_[ _Sally Meets Harry_](http://mary-flanner.livejournal.com/3617.html#cutid4) _._ So thanks to [badmotherflanner](http://badmotherflanner.tumblr.com) for giving me a place to start, and thanks to [nachochang](http://nachochang.tumblr.com) for giving me a place to end._
> 
> _Also ontumblr._

Blaine Anderson is a person of contrasts.

On the stage he’s composed and energetic, broadcasting a maturity and romantic magnetism that make him more man than boy. And not just a man, but something beyond that – larger than life, with a presence that makes the rafters seem to vibrate. Jeremiah’s seen a lot of performers come and go in his few years of part-time tech work at Kings Island, and only this one has made him think, _You’re the real deal._

But here at the Kings Island Christmas Spectacular cast party, the polish of Blaine’s onstage persona has disappeared. In its place is a giggly, pint-sized guy who could be mistaken for a child if it wasn’t for the way he’s been chugging down mulled wine all night and flirting _way_ too obviously with every guy in the cast but Virgil Johnson, the 50-year-old who plays Santa and has stayed in character for the evening.

Until now. Blaine’s just crawled into Santa’s lap and is curling the end of his faux white beard around his finger. “Your lap is _sooooo_ comfortable,” Blaine says, letting his cheek sink into Virgil’s fur-trimmed lapel. “Can I stay here the rest of the night? I’ve been a very good boy this year.”

Jeremiah gets up from the couch where he’s been sitting with the other techs and walks the three steps to Virgil’s armchair. “C’mon, Blaine. You’ve had enough to drink.” He stretches out his hand.

“I think your friend is right, young Blaine,” Virgil concurs in his jocular Mr. Claus voice.

Blaine looks between Santa and Jeremiah in confusion, his eyebrows pressing together like two chunks of licorice. “I’ve only had one.” He reaches for the cup that he’s temporarily set on the side table next to Virgil’s chair and holds it out for them both to examine. “See? I’ve been using the same cup all night.”

Jeremiah takes the cup and sets it back down on the table. “Each refill counts as a drink.”

“I haven’t had any refills. Just topped it off a little here and there to keep it warm. You know, like coffee.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

Blaine furrows his brows more deeply. “No?”

“No.” Jeremiah shakes his head and struggles to keep from laughing. “C’mon. It’s a long drive back to Lima. We should head out.” He holds his hand out again for Blaine to take.

“Fine,” Blaine says, sticking his lip out in a pout that seems undecided as to whether it should be childish or sexy. “After I hug Santa.”

Virgil gives Jeremiah a shrug as Blaine throws his arms around his velvet-clad shoulders. “Merry Christmas, Blaine.”

Blaine beams. “Merry Christmas, Santa. I love you _sooo_ much.” And with that he plants a kiss on Virgil’s very pink cheek.

“Okay, let’s go before Santa sues you for workplace sexual harassment.” Jeremiah takes  Blaine by both hands and tugs him out of Virgil’s lap.

Blaine doesn’t let go of Jeremiah as he steadies himself – and he doesn’t let go afterward, either. He looks down at their clasped hands with interest. “That feels nice,” he says with the smile of someone who just discovered a hundred-dollar bill in their jeans pocket.

Behind Blaine’s back, Virgil raises his eyebrows and mouths ‘ _good luck with that’_ before heading toward the drink table.

*

Jeremiah hasn’t known Blaine for long. They met on pizza break at the show’s tech rehearsal last week. Blaine was making the rounds of the room, methodically introducing himself to every single member of the crew.

"Hello," he said when he got to Jeremiah, holding his hand out expectantly. "I’m Blaine Anderson. We haven’t met yet.”

As a general rule Jeremiah doesn’t like to shake hands, but he’ll do it when he’s cornered. “Jeremiah,” he said, switching his Coke from his right hand to his left and accepting Blaine’s hand.

As far as handshakes go, it wasn’t terrible. It was firm but not domineeringly tight, and even though the kid had already touched the grease-stained hands of a dozen other people, his skin felt … nice, to be frank. Like holding a baby.

“So what part of crew are you?” Blaine asked earnestly.

“Lighting.”

Blaine’s eyes went wide. “That’s awesome. You guys are doing a great job. And I’m so sorry for stepping out of the choreography earlier.”

Jeremiah just stared. Few performers since those small college productions had ever bothered to learn his name; fewer had thanked him for his work; and none of them had ever apologized to him for anything. “Well, thanks.” _This kid could probably charm the pants off half the girls in Ohio._ Jeremiah wished he’d had that skill at Blaine’s age. Fuck, he wished he had it _now._ Well, not to charm the pants off of _girls_ , but –

“Have you been doing lighting long?”

On the surface, it sounded like a cheesy line that someone would use at a bar in an attempt to break through the ice coating most of Jeremiah’s interactions with strangers. But coming from Blaine, it sounded sincere – like he actually cared what the answer was.

And indeed, Blaine was watching Jeremiah’s face expectantly for an answer. “Since high school.”

“So you’re in college?”

Jeremiah shook his head. “No. I’m done with that. I just work now.”

Blaine nodded and continued asking lots of questions and Jeremiah, for some reason, found himself enjoying himself as he answered them. It turned out that they both lived in Lima – or rather, Blaine’s parents lived in Lima and so did he on weekends and boarding school holidays – so they exchanged phone numbers to plan a carpool to the dress rehearsal.

Because Jeremiah wasn’t ready to entrust his life to a 16 year-old, he politely insisted on driving when they texted about it later. Blaine turned out to be a good carpool companion from the minute he got into the car: he ooh’ed and aah’ed over every single CD in Jeremiah’s glove compartment – even Miley Cyrus, which he’d usually remove from the car before anyone rode with him to prevent being made fun of. They ended up bopping along to “Party in the U.S.A.” on instant repeat six times in a row.

For the rest of the 2 hours to Kings Island, Blaine kept the conversation going with questions that were interesting but not overly personal, and he told Jeremiah a little about his show choir and how talented everybody in it was. (That should have rubbed Jeremiah the wrong way – he usually _hated_ how performers gushed over themselves and their cohorts as if they were all Van Goghs of the stage – but with Blaine somehow the affection he had for his group was charming).

“Especially this new guy we have.” Blaine sighed with a dreamy reverie that made Jeremiah glance away from the rode. In the steep light of the early winter morning, the boy’s face looked like it was lit up from the inside. “He has this voice like you wouldn’t believe. For one of his solo auditions he sang ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ without transposing the key, and his voice – it was like an angel had descended from heaven. I know that sounds trite, but …”

"No, I get it," Jeremiah said. "Some things are hard to describe in words."

Blaine shrugged. The sun ducked behind a clutch of trees lining the highway. Blaine’s face went from golden to grey. “He still needs to work on his delivery, though. The other guys in the group thought his performance was too bombastic, so he didn’t get the part.”

“What did you think?”

Blaine stared out at the passing scenery for a moment. “Honestly? I could listen to him forever.” He let his head fall back against the headrest, as if surrendering to the memory of that voice.

They drove in silence for several moments. Jeremiah resisted the urge to ask Blaine if he was smitten with more than the boy’s voice.

_It’s none of my business._

Blaine lifted his head up and straightened his posture. “But I could also see what the other Warblers meant. Most of the time, you need to be able to blend in.”

*

Jeremiah gets Blaine away from the party without a lot of fuss. Yes, Blaine’s arms are wrapped around him and he’s leaning his face into Jeremiah’s shoulder a little too affectionately, but at least he only needs to stop to vomit in the bushes once. It could be worse.

Despite the puking – or perhaps because of it – Blaine is full of energy when they get to the car. “Okay, truth time,” he says as they start out of the parking lot. “What did you think of the show?”

“Honestly?” Jeremiah asks. “I’m not big on Christmas, so I wouldn’t have gone to it if I hadn’t been working it.”

That answer doesn’t deflate Blaine’s perkiness by much. “Ah. So it was sheer torture?”

“No. There were a couple of performers who made me glad I was there.”

“And they were?” Blaine says, practically vibrating in his seat. Jeremiah can hear the subtext of _Tell me I was one of them_ as clearly as a Salvation Army kettle bell.

So Jeremiah draws it out. “Virgil is always good. And that’s saying something, because the whole idea of Santa usually creeps me out. But his voice – that booming bass – it’s kind of a spiritual experience every time I hear it.”

Blaine sighs and leans his head against the passenger-side window. “I know what you mean. Not with Virgil. But listening to my friend Kurt – the one who sang ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’? – that’s what it’s like for me when he sings.”

“Kurt sounds like an awesome guy.”

“He is,” Blaine says, his tone just this side of dreamy. “He’s my best friend.”

“Is he as good of a performer as you?”

Blaine starts at that, lifting his head from the window and turning his gaze toward Jeremiah. “Do you think I’m good?”

Jeremiah nods. “You were my other favorite besides Virgil.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that?”

“No. Why would I say it if I didn’t mean it?”

“Because you have to endure a two-hour ride with me back to Lima.”

Jeremiah smiles. “No, I mean it. If you wanted to make performing your career, I think you could do it. I’d buy your albums, at least.”

“Thanks.” Blaine leans his head back against the window and doesn’t say anything else for several minutes. Jeremiah thinks he’s passed out until Blaine startles him with, “I wasn’t at my best, though.”

“Tonight?”

Blaine shakes his head against the glass. “At any of the shows. Cindy and I don’t have the right chemistry.”

“You didn’t? I thought you two sounded good together. And the audience sure ate you two up.”

“Yeah, but –” Blaine trails off. When he speaks again, his voice is sad and low. “It was better when I sang it with Kurt.”

Jeremiah doesn’t respond. If Blaine wants to say more, he will.

“He helped me rehearse it a few times and … everything just flowed better. His voice was perfect, and the energy was there, and – I just wish I could have sung it with him. But that’s not what people come to the Christmas Spectacular to see.” Blaine raises an index finger to the window and starts tracing patterns against the lightly frosted glass.

Maybe Jeremiah should say something reassuring. But there’s nothing reassuring to say. Blaine’s right.

Maybe, at least, Jeremiah could tell Blaine that he’s not alone. It’s out of his comfort zone, but Blaine is just a child and Jeremiah could have benefited from someone being there for him at that age. So he starts: “Blaine, I know it’s hard, but –”

A snore comes from the passenger seat.

Jeremiah puts Bruno Mars on low volume and turns onto I-75. He glances at the boy beside him; asleep he looks even younger than he did at the party, more lost and naive. His cheeks are cherubically round in the lights of the highway lamps, and his eyelashes cast long shadows against his skin. He’s like a baby painted by a sentimental oil painter – the kind of portrait that gets printed on porcelain plates and sold in the back of gossip magazines to old women who miss having someone young to care for.

*

They’re half an hour from Lima when Blaine finally stirs. “Oh my god I feel like I just ate a sauteed rat with the hair still on.” He smacks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and pouts.

“You want to stop for water? Or maybe coffee?”

Blaine rubs his hand over his hair. “Yeah, that would be good in case my parents are still up. I’m feeling a little less dizzy than I was before, but maybe that’s just because I’ve been sitting down for the last … How long was I out?”

“About an hour and a half.”

“I’d like to get my head a little clearer before we get back.”

“Was this your first time drinking?” Jeremiah says, pulling off into a gas station.

“No,” Blaine mutters. “Maybe.”

“Well, you should probably work on pacing yourself. It’s all fun and games until you hit on the wrong guy.”

That gets Blaine’s attention. He crosses his arms and makes an expression that Jeremiah never expected to see on that eager-to-please face: a scowl. “I’m sorry. Does my gayness shock you?”

“Dude. Overreact much?” Jeremiah pulls the parking brake a little too hard as he stops the car in front of the gas station’s convenience store. He takes a deep breath. “I happen to be gay, too – so no, it doesn’t disgust me.”

Blaine’s scrunched up eyebrows blur into a single rectangle in the dim light of night. “Oh.”

“I’m just trying to watch out for you. Not everyone is as accepting as the theater crowd. I don’t want you to learn that the hard way.”

Blaine uncrosses his arms and reaches for the passenger door handle. “You don’t need to worry about that,” he says quietly. “I already have.”

*

Blaine makes his way inside without any help. His steps falter only slightly, like he’s been on a train for a few days and isn’t yet used to walking on surfaces that aren’t moving – but he stays upright.

There are a couple of booths on the far side of the coffee station, just next to the stale self-service donuts. They sit there and wait for more of Blaine’s buzz to wear off.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were gay before?” Blaine asks, his voice low. Apparently the kid’s not as reckless as Jeremiah took him to be. Still, Jeremiah looks reflexively over his shoulder to make sure no one’s in listening distance.

“I wasn’t sure it was relevant,” he says.

“But you knew I was gay, right?” Blaine frowns. “I don’t try to hide it.”

“I thought you might be, but my gaydar honestly kind of sucks, so I wasn’t sure until tonight when you started hitting on the Nutcracker Prince … and each of Santa’s elves, and –”

Blaine looks sheepishly down at his coffee cup. “I wasn’t _hitting_ on them. I was just …” He looks up at Jeremiah with a suppressed smile. “Being friendly?”

Jeremiah bites back a laugh. “The way you were licking that candy cane in front of Rudolph wasn’t exactly platonic.”

“I – I –” Blaine starts, and then stops, and then launches into a giggle fit that sets the table shaking. “Oh my god, I’m terrible when I’m drunk.”

“Well, that depends on what your goals are. But next time you’re planning to seduce half the guys at your cast party, you’re going to have to let your ride know ahead of time. Because I was _not_ prepared to wait all night.”

Blaine’s eyes go wide and doe-like. “I wasn’t planning to _sleep_ with any of them.”

Jeremiah pauses for a beat. He might be stepping out of bounds. But he did some really stupid things when he was younger. Maybe he can prevent the kid from repeating his mistakes. “Plans have a way of rewriting themselves when you’re wasted, Blaine. Trust me on that one and maybe drink less next time.”

Blaine doesn’t respond immediately. He sips on his coffee, peering over the lip of his cup as if Jeremiah were a fascinating object of study. “So –” he says as he sets his coffee down. “How have your plans rewritten themselves when you were drunk?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure this is appropriate for someone my age to be discussing with someone your age.”

Blaine narrows his eyes. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“That’s not old. My brother’s older than that.”

“Then your brother’s a lot older than you.”

Blaine tries a different tack. “Anyway, you were probably closer to my age when you first did something regretful while drunk.”

“I was sixteen.”

“So you can tell me that one.” Blaine winks.

“Fine.” Jeremiah sighs with the exasperation of a chess player who gets checkmated right when he was about to capture the king. “I tried to kiss my best friend.”

“And he wasn’t interested?”

“He wasn’t even gay.”

Blaine tears off a bite of his donut and chews before speaking again. “So … he wasn’t cool with it?”

Jeremiah shrugs. “He got a girlfriend the next day and started PDA-ing with her in front of me at every opportunity. We didn’t talk much for the rest of high school.”

“Well then. He wasn’t worth the honor of being your best friend.” Blaine smiles, clearly pleased with his pronouncement.

“Yeah, because that’s _such_ an honor, getting to hang out with me.”

Blaine looks at him with a lopsided smile. “Of course it is.”

Jeremiah waits for Blaine to look away, but he doesn’t. He keeps gazing at him fondly with those big brown eyes, and by the time Jeremiah wonders if the look has gone on for too long, he’s not sure how to break eye contact without it being awkward.

Fortunately, Blaine’s the first to blink. “That reminds me,” he says, turning to his side and opening the satchel that he brought with him when they left the car. “I got so enchanted with the mulled wine at the party that I forgot to give you your present.” He pulls out a thin package in green paper stamped with tiny red bows. “Merry Christmas!”

Jeremiah raises an eyebrow. “Actually, I’m Jewish.”

“Oops.” Blaine’s golden skin goes ashen. “I knew I should have wrapped that in the silver paper. Happy Hanukkah?”

Jeremiah smirks. “Hanukkah is way past over. But I accept your pagan offerings.”

Blaine claps his hands like a little boy who’s just been given a puppy. “Good. Because I promise you’ll like it.”

Jeremiah laughs in disbelief as soon as he removes the wrapping paper. Blaine Anderson – a 16-year-old child that Jeremiah met a week ago – knows him better than any of the guys he’s dated in the past few years.

The present is Miley Cyrus’ _Can’t Be Tamed_.

“You like it, don’t you?” Blaine says, beaming.

Jeremiah can feel his face turning pink. “Yeah, I do.”

“I thought you would. I remembered you saying you didn’t have it yet.”

“Thank you. That’s really thoughtful of you.” Jeremiah taps the edge of the CD against his palm. _Time for the awkward._ “I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you.”

“That’s okay,” Blaine smiles. “It’s mostly a thank you for driving me to Kings Island.”

“Well,” Jeremiah says, tucking the CD into his coat pocket. “If I’d known Miley Cyrus would be involved, I would have offered a lot sooner.”

*

By the time they get to Blaine’s house, all the lights inside are off. “Thank you,” Blaine says, reaching out his hand. “For the rides and for sobering me up.”

Without hesitation, Jeremiah shakes it. “You’re not sober yet, kid.”

“I’m not really a kid,” Blaine says quietly before pulling his hand away and bending over to grab his satchel from the floor.  “It’s too bad the show’s over already. It’s been nice getting to know you.”

“It has been. I’m actually going to miss these drives. Go figure.”

Blaine body stiffens slightly. He reaches for the passenger door, hesitates, then turns around. “We could get coffee sometime.”

Blaine’s eyes are a little too warm.

Jeremiah almost says no.

But when he was 16, he certainly could have used more friends. So instead, he says, “Sure. Text me.”

*

The windows immediately mist up when Jeremiah gets into his car the next day for his afternoon shift at the Gap. He turns on the engine, flicks on the defroster and grabs a rag from the glove compartment.

Leaning over to wipe the condensation from the passenger seat window, he sees it: “KURT” spelled out in clear glass against the fog.

"Oh Blaine, you poor boy. You’ve got it bad."

*

A few weeks later they meet for coffee a few stores down from the Gap during Jeremiah’s break. Blaine’s home for the weekend and can’t stop talking about the football game he went to last night, although most of his narrative actually revolves around Kurt: the jokes he made, the things he wore, the way he hopped on his toes and clapped for every touchdown.

“It was _adorable_ how much Kurt got into it,” Blaine gushes. “He doesn’t really like football that much, even though he used to be a kicker and totally turned McKinley’s team around from a losing streak. But he was _so_ into it last night. I love it when he’s happy.” Blaine’s adorable when he’s happy, too, although more in a little-brother kind of way than the way he finds Kurt adorable.

“And the half-time show!” Blaine continues, pointing his biscotti at Jeremiah. “It was incredible. They were all made up like zombies – the cheerleaders, the glee club, the football team – and they did this amazing dance, and then the football players kept their zombie make-up on in the second half and we all chanted ‘Brains! Brains! Brains!’ and it totally freaked out the visiting team. The zombie costumes were really accurate. I know, because I’ve seen a lot of zombie movies.” He takes a bite of his biscotti and chews thoughtfully. “Though to be honest, I think if you were going to rate the way that everyone at the game was dressed, Kurt and I would have come out on top. We planned it out ahead of time and wore our peacoats and these scarves that coordinated with each other without being matchy-matchy – you know, the same colors and style, but his was striped and mine was plaid. We looked _awesome._ ”

“So …” Jeremiah looks around the coffee shop, lowers his voice when he sees another pair of patrons a couple of tables away. “You two are going out now?”

Blaine freezes, the biscotti hovering in his hand. He stays like that for a full five seconds before coming to and setting it back down on its plate. “No.” He pauses. “We’re best friends.”

“Oh.” Jeremiah should have kept to his policy of sticking to his own business, but now that he’s violated it, he might as well go all the way in. “I’m sorry, I just thought – Is he not gay?”

Blaine looks down at his plate, breaks what’s left of his biscotti in half. “He’s gay. But just because two guys are gay –” He picks his cup from the table, takes a slow sip of coffee, sets his cup resolutely down. “There are people you date and people who are your friends. Kurt is my best friend.”

Jeremiah stifles a chuckle. “That kind of wisdom leads me to believe you’ve never actually dated anyone.”

“I took a guy to my school’s Sadie Hawkins dance last year.”

“Okay. But I mean – have you ever had a boyfriend?”

Blaine glances furtively at Jeremiah. “No. Not really.”

“In my experience, the best relationships are the ones where you’re friends first.”

“Even –” Blaine chews his lip. “Even after what happened with you and your best friend in high school, you believe that?”

Jeremiah wants to reach out across the table and squeeze Blaine’s arm – he’s so young, _so_ naive. But he’s also too old for casual touches from a 24-year-old to come across as simply casual. Jeremiah crosses his arms in front of his chest. “My friend was straight. That’s kind of a confounding factor.”

Blaine slumps back in his chair, eyes Jeremiah curiously. “So are you dating one of your friends now?”

Jeremiah doesn’t stifle his laugh this time. “That’s a personal question.”

“As if you haven’t been asking me personal questions.” Blaine winks – and maybe Jeremiah should lecture him about that, but he decides to let it pass.

“Fair enough. No, I’m not dating anyone right now.”

“So when you’ve dated, you’ve only dated friends?”

Jeremiah clears his throat. “Actually, I’ve never dated a friend. But dating not-friends hasn’t worked out too well for me.”

“Oh.” Blaine dips one of his biscotti halves in his coffee and watches as the liquid soaks in. He pops it in his mouth for a long, languid chew. “I’m sorry.”

Jeremiah shrugs. “I’m not worried about becoming an old maid. I’m still pretty young.”

Blaine winks again, the little imp. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

*

It’s been a few weeks since seeing Blaine, and Jeremiah actually sort of misses him. Blaine has texted a couple times proposing another coffee date, but Jeremiah’s declined the invitations, citing work. Intergenerational friendships with hormonal teenage boys are just too complicated.

Despite that, he finds himself hoping that maybe they’ll work at Kings Island sometime again – hopefully _after_ Blaine’s gotten his act together and has started dating Kurt or someone else age-appropriate.

But Jeremiah ends up seeing Blaine a lot sooner than that, during a moderately busy February afternoon at the Gap. A bevy of private school boys show up in navy blue blazers that Jeremiah recognizes from the last time he had coffee with Blaine. He scans the heads for a familiar face and … there it is, over by the men’s jackets. Blaine’s whispering something to a thin, wonderfully pale boy that reminds Jeremiah of his younger self but with straighter, darker hair and a touch more anger bubbling at the surface.

They look like they’re in the middle of a lover’s quarrel – the pale boy (it _must_ be Kurt, the way Blaine looks at him) restraining his annoyance, Blaine overwhelmed and turning toward the exit. Kurt grabs Blaine with both hands and pulls him back; even from here Jeremiah can see the conflict between desire and fear playing out in Blaine's eyes as he turns back toward Kurt. Jeremiah looks away – they're about one second from either pinching each other or making out, and if the latter happens he’ll eventually have to go over there and ask them to put a stop to it. But honestly? He hopes they _do_ start making out. If Blaine has a boyfriend, Jeremiah can start returning his phone calls without feeling like a creep.

But they don’t start making out. Instead, the voice that once filled the Kings Island auditorium rings through the store, and Jeremiah wants to curl up and disappear.

*

The talk with his manager goes okay.

She doesn’t ask Jeremiah if he’s gay, or how he knows Blaine, or why a high school show choir would think that singing a song _like that_ in the middle of the Gap would be a swell idea.

She just asks him if Jeremiah was as surprised as she was, and if he’s upset as he looks.

The answer to both questions is _yes._

“But you have to admit there’s a certain amount of artistry in choosing a song about workplace sexual harassment to … well, workplace sexually harass me,” Jeremiah quips.

“I know you use humor to diffuse situations that upset you, but this really isn’t  a laughing matter, Jeremiah,” Meredith says, flipping her ironed hair over her shoulder. “The Gap strives to create a workplace that is safe and welcoming for all employees. I’m banning him from the store, and … crap, I’m going to have to find a picture of him to give to mall security. Well, we can probably pull something from the security cameras.” She taps some notes into her computer, then looks at him. “Do you need help filing a restraining order?”

Jeremiah shakes his head. “No. He’s just a stupid kid. I think being banned from the store will probably be enough of a lesson. And maybe if I tell him he got me fired –”

Meredith scowls. “We don’t fire people for being victims of sexual harassment. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. And if it’s not, it should be.”

Jeremiah nods. “Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking out loud.”

Meredith falls back into her chair with a sigh. He’s known her since high school – she was captain of the cheerleading team, homecoming queen twice, prom queen their senior year. He’s worked with her for two years, and can only remember seeing her without a smile on her face twice, both times in the back room on a Black Friday.

He adds today to the roster.

“I’m so sorry, Jeremiah. I feel like I should have seen this coming.”

“Um … why?”

She picks up a pencil from her desk and twists it in her hands. “Because I’ve seen him in here probably a half-dozen times over the last month or so, and I don’t remember ever seeing him around here before that. At first I thought he was a shoplifter, but we kept an eye on him and none of the merchandise went missing. And he bought something every time he came. I thought maybe he just really liked our after-Christmas scarf sale.”

Jeremiah shrugs. “Well, his fondness for scarves is genuine.”

*

Despite Meredith's disapproval of the plan, he ends up telling Blaine he got fired. It’s easier to completely scare Blaine off than to try clarifying the rules of their friendship.

It’s too bad, though. Despite Blaine’s incredibly creepy affinity for Robin Thicke, he'd been nice to have around.

*

The 2010 Kings Island Christmas Spectacular turns out to be Jeremiah’s last. He gets full-time work at a theater in Cincinnati in the spring; when he tells Meredith that he’s leaving the Gap and she can let Blaine back in the store, she seems torn. Jeremiah never finds out what comes of it.

He doesn’t think about Blaine much, but sometimes when he listens to _Can’t Be Tamed_ the good memories flow back. He doesn’t regret cutting things off, really; instead he wonders what things might have been like if Blaine had been born his cousin or brother, or if Blaine weren’t so recklessly naive.

He thinks about Kurt, too – the way he watched moon-eyed as Blaine danced through the store that awful February afternoon, about the sympathetic-but-hopeful look on Kurt’s face when Jeremiah left them outside the Gap.

He wonders if Blaine, who was brave enough to humiliate himself in front of a store full of strangers, ever got brave enough to admit who he really loved.

For the most part, though, he doesn’t think about Blaine at all.

And then, on a lazy Sunday in June of 2013, Jeremiah’s boyfriend pulls out his earplugs, looks up from his iPad and says, “It’s too bad you hate these flashmob things. It’s all the rage in wedding proposals these days. I honestly don’t know how we’re ever going to get married if I can’t flashmob you first.”

Jeremiah removes his feet from Steve’s lap and scoots down the couch to nestle closer to him. “I hate _being_ flashmobbed, and you know why. But maybe I could flashmob you.” He pulls Steve’s hand to his lips and kisses his bare ring finger. “Did you have a certain song in mind?”

Steve pulls the earplugs out of the iPad and turns the volume up. “This one’s pretty good,” he says, tipping the screen so Jeremiah gets a better view.

“Holy crap,” Jeremiah gasps at the sight of boys in navy blue blazers with red trim dancing on the screen. “That’s the Dalton Warblers.”

“Wait – you mean the ones who mobbed you at the Gap?”

“The very same.” Jeremiah nods his head, surprised that the sight of them doesn’t fill him with terror. Instead, his eyes are darting from face to face, trying to identify Blaine. Because that solo? Jeremiah would recognize that voice anywhere. That is Blaine Fucking Anderson.

“Do you want me to turn this off?” Steve says quietly.

“No. This is … fascinating.”

“Good fascinating, or ‘like watching _Hannibal’_ fascinating?”

“A good kind,” Jeremiah mumbles. “I was always curious about how this story would end.”

He sees Blaine’s face soon enough, although he looks … different, his curls plastered to his head and his eyes – they still have a naivete to them, but there’s a courage and resoluteness in them too that Jeremiah doesn’t remember from the Blaine he used to know.

His little boy is growing up.

And then … Kurt. Even though Jeremiah didn’t particularly like Kurt from the entire five seconds they once conversed with each other, he finds himself smiling with him and gasping with him and finally, as the music dies and the proposal begins, welling up with tears.

“Hey, you alright?” Steve says, brushing Jeremiah’s hair back from his face when the video ends.

Jeremiah wipes the back of his hand across his cheek. “That was Blaine. The one singing, it was Blaine.”

Steve nods, looks into Jeremiah’s eyes, waits.

Jeremiah doesn’t know how to put it into words. It’s a proprietary feeling, like Blaine is his somehow – his brother, his student, his son. “I don’t know. It’s like, when I knew him, he was beginning to learn how to walk but hadn’t really gotten the hang of it yet and kept falling back on crawling. I always wondered if he ever did finally get comfortable with walking. And it looks like he has.” He reaches for Steve’s hand, swallowing heavily as he twines their fingers together. “I didn’t really know how to walk either, even though I thought I did. I learned that when I met you.”

Steve presses a kiss to Jeremiah’s forehead. “Does that mean I should start planning my flashmob marriage proposal for you?”

“No, I think –” Jeremiah smiles and leans into Steve’s shoulder, looks at their joined hands. “I think I’m going to propose to you. I think I’ll do it on a quiet Sunday afternoon when we’re sitting together watching videos of old acquaintances getting engaged on YouTube. I’ll suddenly realize how stupid I am for hiding your engagement ring in the sofa for the past three months and not asking you already.”

Steve’s jaw goes slack. “In _this_ sofa?”

Jeremiah nods.

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m very serious. It’s right –” Jeremiah leans over to fish the box out from between the cushions.

Before he’s reached it, Steve is already on him, giggling and kissing him breathless and whispering, “Yes, the answer is yes,” into his mouth.

* * *THE END* * *


End file.
